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Warm weather calms snowstorm

It wasn’t quite the winter wallop we were expecting — not in Vancouver,at least — as the predicted 10 to 20 centimetres of snow fell insteadas rain and made for an easier, albeit wetter commute yesterday.

It wasn’t quite the winter wallop we were expecting — not in Vancouver, at least — as the predicted 10 to 20 centimetres of snow fell instead as rain and made for an easier, albeit wetter commute yesterday.

Environment Canada issued a snow and freezing rain warning on Monday, sending Vancouverites scrambling to hardware stores for shovels and salt, but nothing much came of the flurries.

Gary Dickinson, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said it’s not easy to predict snowfall patterns in Vancouver.

“The smallest subtleties can throw off a forecast,” he said. “(If the) temperature rises just half a degree, that can change (snow to rain).”

He said the weather changed from an Arctic air mass to a moist Pacific mass, raising the temperature by a few degrees and turning what should have been snow into rain.

Dickinson added while people seemed upset at receiving an inaccurate weather report, it could have been worse — the report could have been true.

The roads weren’t as clear in the Fraser Valley, however, where five to 10 centimetres of the white stuff actually fell and stayed on the ground in Surrey, Delta, Langley and Abbotsford. As for the rest of the week, expect the usual — rain.